//------------------------------// // Chapter 36 // Story: The Haunting // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// The Haunting Admiral Biscuit After checking to make sure Milfoil was still breathing, I picked her up and carried her to the couch. I was going to take her all the way upstairs, but she was heavier than I thought, and she wouldn’t appreciate if I dropped her on the way to my bedroom. Once I had her settled I went upstairs to the bathroom. She had a selection of brushes and combs that she left at my house, and I had a decent idea what they were all for, so I set them down on the end table and built up the fire in the fireplace. I was a bit leery of brushing her mane. I didn’t want to get the brush caught on any tangles and hurt her pulling them out. Her coat was short enough that that wouldn’t be an issue, so that was where I chose to start. Milfoil had rolled on her side—I wouldn't be able to completely groom her unless I rolled her over. That was a problem for later. I started on her back, brushing along the grain of her coat. She had little bits of gravel and mud in the fur on her belly and legs, and I puzzled over where that could have come from. I didn’t think she could have picked it up between her house and mine, and she hadn’t gotten that involved with Windflower’s plant. Milfoil liked to brush herself a little bit before bed and again in the morning to get her coat in order, but she might have forgotten. She might have been in a rush to heal the plant. Once I’d finished her coat—as much of it as I could—I moved on to her mane. I took my time, and if I caught a tangle, I worked it slowly and carefully with the brush, doing my best to not tug at her hair. I was no stylist, but I thought it looked presentable when I was done. Her tail was reasonably easy—I should have started with that. I could just sit on the couch with her tail on my lap and brush it that way. On the down side, it was more tangled than her mane. But unlike her mane, I could just wrap my hand around her dock and keep from pulling hair out that way. ••••• Windflower came in while I was still brushing Milfoil’s tail. I waited until her curiosity drew her over to the couch before putting the brush down. Since I was already the bad cop, I didn’t think it would hurt our relationship too much to use that to my advantage. “Did you know that Milfoil spent all day trying to save that flower that you pulled out of the ground? It exhausted her completely—she fell asleep as soon as she was done.” Windflower’s ears dropped and she shook her head and then turned to look at the mantle. When she didn’t find it there, she looked back to me, and I pointed to the pot that was its new home. She took a couple of ghost-steps towards the plant, then turned back to me. “It’s okay, you can go look at it. She healed it for you, after all. She won’t mind.” I could have gone back to brushing Milfoil’s tail, but I watched Windflower instead. She was eager to see the plant, and she put her nose right down against it, just like Milfoil had. She touched it with her hooves and it moved and surely it was just my imagination that it stood a bit straighter and she faded ever so slightly. At least it hadn’t died when she’d touched it. I wonder what she would have done if that had happened? I wonder what Milfoil would have done? ••••• After her initial examination, Windflower was content to just sit and watch the plant. It didn’t do anything, of course. It was only a plant, and there wasn’t much it could do. Still, it had her attention, and despite yesterday’s fiasco, things were smoothed over, at least for the moment. Milfoil was still sound asleep. I wasn’t sure how that would work out—did Windflower trust me enough to stay when Milfoil wasn’t supervising me, wasn’t preventing me from doing something dumb? Or would she shy away if I tried to move her—if I tried to move us a bit out of our comfort zone? The only way to know was to try. While I hadn’t been intending things to work out this way in the beginning, I could use Milfoil’s sacrifice to our advantage. Maybe. “You know,” I said softly, “I think Milfoil would really like it if she woke up and the living room was all decorated for Hearth’s Warming.” Windflower’s ears dropped again, and she looked around the room uncertainty, then moved to where she could see the kitchen. All the decorations were still where we’d left them. She pointed at the plant and then went over to look at Milfoil, and then she nodded and floated into the kitchen. ••••• Both Windflower and I were frustrated by our communication difficulties, but we got it figured out. She’d point to what she wanted me to hang and where to put it, and I’d hold it about where I thought it should go, and then look for a nod of approval or a headshake. I kept waiting for her to get upset and act out again, but she didn’t. I think she felt bad about what had happened yesterday. Milfoil woke up as we were finishing the decorations. She yawned and that got Windflower’s and my attention. I couldn’t really do anything, since I was standing on a kitchen chair holding one end of garland and a hammer and nails. Windflower ghost-trotted over to the couch and nuzzled Milfoil, then she pointed over at the plant. Just to make sure that her message was getting through, she zoomed across the room and pushed it gently with her hoof, rocking it slightly, before going back to Milfoil. ••••• After we finished getting the living room decorated, I read Windflower half of a chapter of Stranger on the Train—she lost interest and instead wanted to play with the plant some more. I didn’t exactly understand the appeal, but I wasn't going to object. It completely justified Milfoil’s efforts. Windflower eventually left, and Milfoil and I went up to my bedroom. I was completely exhausted, and so was she, even though she’d napped half the evening. And we were both hungry—she hadn’t eaten all day, and I’d missed lunch and dinner. Neither of us had wanted to put forth the effort to make a meal, so we’d snacked on bread and cheese and a bowl of timothy grass for her. “How come my coat’s all matted up on one side?” “I—” Shouldn’t I have brushed her? “Your coat was all matted and dirty and I thought you’d—” She nuzzled my cheek. “I know. I saw all my brushes on the table. Thank you. That was really sweet of you to think of that.” She sighed. “I really should go downstairs and get my brush and finish my coat. It’s going to bother me if I don’t.” “I’ll do it,” I offered. “I owe that to you.” “No, it’s fine. It feels a little bit weird, but not that weird. I can deal with it.” “You scared me,” I said. “You shouldn't have worked so hard to save that flower. Or at least told me what was going to happen!” There had been a moment, right after she fell asleep on the floor, that I thought she might have passed out and I had no idea what to do about that. “It took more work to save it than I thought it would,” she admitted. “Plus, I was tired already. I was up all night. I—maybe I shouldn’t have, but last night after Windflower left, I was worried about her. So I followed her into the woods.” Which explained how her coat had gotten so dirty. “I don’t know if she knew I was following or not. She might have known. I tried to be quiet, and I didn’t ever see her looking back. “I could tell that she was . . . oh, I don’t know quite what the right word would be. Not exactly annoyed, and not exactly frustrated; she wasn’t fleeing. . . .” “She was just done with it?” I suggested. “Maybe. Maybe that was it, maybe she was frustrated enough that she just didn’t care. I don’t know.” “When I watched her, when she went into the woods, Windflower was kind of, kind of purposeful. She knew where she was going, and she wasn’t hurrying along, but she also wasn’t trying to shake a tail.” “Shake a tail?” “That’s a human expression. It means trying to lose someone who’s following you.” “She wasn’t doing that,” Milfoil said. She put her head on my chest, and I wrapped my arm around her back. “I watched as she went under the log, and then I stayed a little while longer just in case she came back out, but she didn’t. I walked around the perimeter, wondering if I might get a glimpse of her, but I didn’t. I could feel that she was still there, though. She’s . . . she’s unique. The forest—” “’The forest’ what?” Milfoil was silent for a long time. Long enough that I thought she might have fallen asleep again, until she finally sighed. “It’s not something that you would understand. And I can’t explain it in a way that would make sense to you, but once I felt it I knew it for what it was.” “When I was half a furlong away, I started marking trees so we can find it again.” “How? Do you carry around spray paint? A hatchet?” She bopped me lightly with a hoof. “Us earth ponies have our ways.” “I should have thought of something when I went out. Been resourceful. But I wasn’t exactly thinking of that at the time.” “Well, we can find it again now.”